Multi-core processors (“chip multiprocessors”) contain multiple processing cores that enable multiple application threads to run simultaneously on a single processor device. Such multi-core technology provides improved power efficiency and increased hardware utilization in comparison with conventional single-core processors. Furthermore, during execution, each processing core of the chip multiprocessor shares various resources that are not specifically dedicated to a single processing core. These shared resources include, for example, level 2 (L2) on-board cache devices, memory bus devices, direct memory access (DMA) devices, store buffers and the like. Typically, as in conventional multiprocessor systems, a computer's operating system manages and administers the application threads via a scheduling policy. The scheduling policy, in turn, determines when and for how long the particular application threads will execute on the various processing cores of the chip multiprocessor.